Attitudes and behaviors concerning self-medication practices among adult urban population in Croatia: a cross-sectional study.

Chess has also been referred to as the ‘gymnasium of the mind’, where the players are constantly challenged to participate in complex cognitive operations. Fundamentally, the game is simplicity itself: 32 pieces slide about a 64-square board. However, beneath this simplicity, there is a staggering cognitive challenge. Every move involves considering dozens of options, predicting the opponent’s plan and balancing short-term tactical needs and long-term strategic thinking. Such requirements make chess a perfect candidate for the examination of expertise, problem-solving and human cognition. Decades of psychological research have confirmed that expert chess players differ from novices not only in terms of accumulated knowledge but also in the efficiency of their cognitive processing. Concepts such as chunking theory and pattern recognition explain how grandmasters can recall board positions with remarkable accuracy and retrieve thousands of tactical motifs from long-term memory within seconds. These findings have positioned chess as a central paradigm in cognitive science. However, while classic training methods, opening repertoires memorised by heart, tactical problems solved and endgames worked out have largely determined expert performance, they have no direct impact on reinforcing neural substrates for optimal cognitive performance. They support knowledge structures instead, without optimising brain activity patterns driving attention, working memory and decision making. This shortcoming prompted researchers to consider new approaches, including neurofeedback training (NFT), specifically aimed at influencing neural mechanisms.